


The Zipless Date

by iberiandoctor (jehane)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Dating, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Implied incest (non-explicit), Jealousy, Matchmaking, Multi, Pining, References to Marcus Keane/Tomas Ortega, References to The Exorcist (TV), Romance, Second Wave Feminism, Smut, UST, Valentine's Day, Walks On The Beach, Watersports (non-explicit)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: Maze knows all about human sex and punishment. Fluffy romance? Not so much.





	The Zipless Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/gifts).



For too many years to count, Mazikeen the Two-Faced had been the war leader of the Lilim. She’d led the hordes of Hell into the jaws of Heaven, dressed in the blood of friend and foe alike, and wearing the bones of ex-lovers in her hair. 

Through the millennia in Hell, angels and demons had been drawn to her like moths to a flame, or winged beings to a deadly phenomenon. Sex and oblivion, they were both sides of the same coin, and the chance of both in Maze’s arms made those arms even more captivating. 

Humans weren’t much different. Now that Maze was living among them, she understood how much men and women were at the mercy of their hormones, and drawn to danger as if it was Viagra. With all that fucking, and the pining over not-fucking, and the fighting over fucking the wrong warlord’s daughter or son or the warlord himself, it was a wonder civilizations got built at all. 

Unfortunately, Maze could no longer kill her sex partners when they displeased her, let alone wear their bones ornamentally — mostly because that would get her into trouble with the LAPD, and, thanks to Detective Hot Tub High School, Lucifer was now annoyingly fixated on _not_ getting into trouble with the LAPD.

So, there was to be no more death or bodily harm in Maze’s bedroom, unless you counted fucking someone to death, which had only happened once, and it hadn’t even been her fault (or entirely her fault). 

At first, she thought that was the thing that was missing.

“I don’t believe I’ve gone off sex,” she told Lucifer, after an entirely unsatisfying evening with a billionaire from out of town who had a costume fetish and a thing for orphans. Smacking him around hadn’t even gotten her hard; to her disgust, she’d found herself giving him a severe talking-to and the card of a good therapist and a threat to lodge an anonymous tip-off with Child Protection Services.

Lucifer rubbed his forehead. He’d been doing that lately. She thought that moving back into Lux after her bounty hunter gig was going to mend the rift that her leaving had caused, but closer quarters seemed to be making things worse. 

“Please tell me I can blame my darling brother for this sorry state of affairs?”

Maze squinted. “It’s not Amenadiel’s fault,” she said. “At least, I don’t think it is. Sex with him was fine. Of course, I was planning on killing him when I was having sex with him, so maybe that’s why.”

“Well, it’s not Detective Decker’s fault that you can’t go around beating up on humans.” Lucifer thought about this, and quickly added, “It’s not my fault either. You’re a free agent, Maze, and non-humans have always been fair game.”

“But I want to have sex with humans,” Maze said, surprising herself. Humans were soft and fragile and broke much too easily, and yet, there was something about them that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

“Then you need to abide by human rules, my dear,” Lucifer drawled. “Oh, don’t look so put out! Humans manage to have fun having sex without acting on any homicidal urges.”

“You’re one to talk. You’ve had your head stuck up Detective Decker’s ass for so long you can’t tell your dick from your elbow anymore.”

Lucifer protested, “That is entirely untrue! Besides, humans like their sex enlivened by other things.”

Maze considered this. “You think I should find someone who likes to be peed on?” she asked; she could get on board with that.

“Maybe? But failing that, you could try the world of romance.”

Maze felt her nose wrinkling. “Candlelight and hamburgers and hand-holding?” she managed. Demons didn’t have a gag reflex, except apparently when nauseating fluff was involved. 

Lucifer shoved her shoulder. “Don’t be rude about my human. Nor should you knock it until you’ve tried it.”

 

*

 

Valentine’s Day was coming up. Maze figured she had nothing to lose by trying it out Lucifer’s way.

Except that the pair of fraternal twins Lucifer sent her straight from the Prada runway were actually into watersports, and Maze just wasn’t feeling it. She sat through the candle-lit dinner and then led them into Lucifer’s own rose-strewn bedroom, where she let the girl twin suck her off; afterwards she spread the boy across Lucifer’s shiny new bed and let fly. But for some reason, she ended up wiping them off and wrapping them both in the Fall/Winter collection’s synthetic coats and sending them on their way. It was frustrating.

Lucifer sighed when he saw the dry cleaning bill. “All that, and you only came twice?”

“ _Once_ ,” Maze said, and Lucifer shuddered. 

Maze wondered if she ought to see a therapist about this. It was what humans would do if they were having problems in the bedroom. Fortunately, she knew a really good one.

 

*

 

“Your billionaire playboy wanted more than therapy,” Linda remarked, by way of greeting.

Maze actually saw red before the rush of anger took hold of her. “Great. That means I finally get to kill somebody!”

She only realized she’d gotten out of her chair when she became aware that someone was clasped around her knees and saying something that sounded like, “No, Maze!” 

She looked down. Linda had thrown herself across her desk in order to stop Maze from leaving, and was trying valiantly to tackle her to the floor. Maze was quite impressed, despite herself. She wouldn’t have figured the good doctor knew dirty football tackles, but underneath the demure silk blouse and prim glasses, Dr. Linda Martin was full of surprises, as well as in possession of a surprisingly muscular shoulder block.

“Oh please, he’d totally deserve it,” she said, but she put her knives back into her belt. 

Linda subsided in her efforts, and sat back on the floor, panting. A lock of her blonde hair had come loose, and she puffed it away from her mouth.

“Patient confidentiality, I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “I just didn’t think you’d get this upset! I thought…” 

She trailed off. Maze squatted down, and pushed the unruly lock of hair behind Linda’s ear. “Of course I’d be angry,” she said. “Nobody should be rude to you, or get to hit on you without your consent. I mean, you’re so hot I’m sure you’re used to having many patients hitting on you! But you should get used to me wanting to hit them _for_ you.”

She helped Linda up, and they resumed their positions, if a little less steadily than before. Maze looked at Linda with newfound respect. 

“Actually, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Sex with humans has become boring. I wasn’t into sex with the billionaire, even though he was built like a tree and really into punishment. And that wasn’t even the first time it happened.” 

Maze explained about the twins, and watched as the doctor’s heart-shaped face did small, complicated things that Maze didn’t understand. She ended with, “See, Lucifer thought it was something that could be fixed by dinner and flowers and various types of good old human kink. But it didn’t work.”

Linda peered over her glasses at Maze; she looked somewhat conflicted, for reasons Maze didn’t get. Finally, she said, “For some people, sex is a purely physical function, something that they engage in without emotional attachment. Other people find sex only fulfilling when feelings are involved. From what you’ve told me, you’ve always been in the first camp. Many people are. There’s a school of feminist theory that advocates sex without the usual trappings of emotion as a function of empowerment. I have done it myself, on occasion…” 

For a moment, Linda’s eyes took on a look that people sometimes got when they were thinking about fabulous empowering sex with Lucifer. (Maze could relate.) Then the doctor shook herself and continued briskly, “But as a whole, people tend to be emotional beings who interact in complex social ways. Because of that, some find meaning in sexual interaction that involves emotional attachment.”

Maze frowned. “So you’re saying human sex has become boring because I’m not emotionally invested? I should try getting more attached first?”

Linda tugged at her ear as if the loose lock of hair was bothering her. Maze noticed the ear was tiny and shapely and had multiple piercings, only one of which was adorned with a single pearl earring. “It’s just one approach. But it doesn’t sound as if it’s something you’ve tried before? Besides...” She looked Maze dead in the eye. “You don’t need anything to empower you. You’re the most powerful woman I know.”

 

*

 

How did one build an emotional investment like humans did? It was back to the fluffy romance again.

“I still don’t get why we’re doing this,” Amenadiel said. He looked pensively out at the expanse of Santa Monica beach. It was chilly for February; since his Fall, he’d been dressing more warmly, wrapping up in cable-knit sweaters and a loose gray overcoat that Maze quite liked.

Maze looked, too — at the overcast sky, at the lapping waves on the shore, at the human couples who’d clearly had the same idea to brave the weather in the name of romance.

“I told you,” she said, as patiently as she could. “Dr. Linda thinks I should try to connect more. And apparently how humans like to connect is walks on the beach in the sunset.” Amenadiel raised a perfect eyebrow at her, and she changed this to, “Okay, maybe that one came from Dr. Phil.”

Amenadiel said, “Look, I’m no expert, but I’m not sure it works that way. Humans connect by sharing. All this,” and here the sweep of his arm took in the beach, the waves, the reddening sky, “is pretty, but it’s just _setting_ , like our Father designed it to be.”

In response, Maze extended her ice cream cone to him, and he rolled his eyes. “Not what I meant,” he said, though he took a bite anyway.

They stood there in silence for a while, listening to the sound of the ocean, the call of birds. After a while, Amenadiel said, “You know, I’m sorry for what happened, but I’m not sorry it happened.”

Maze couldn’t make sense of this. She crammed the rest of the cone into her mouth, and grabbed hold of his chin so she could turn his face towards hers. “Are you finally saying you’re sorry for screwing me, or for screwing me over?”

“For one of those things. I never meant to hurt you,” he said; he finally met her gaze, his eyes as clouded and unreadable as ever.

Maze narrowly swallowed the automatic _fuck, you didn’t hurt me_ , because she remembered how much it actually, entire-liquor-cabinet-destroyingly, had hurt. Instead, she waited until she got herself under control, and then she said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, either.”

She saw how that, at least, registered in his eyes. He smiled sadly, and she let him cup her face in his hands and kiss her. It didn’t feel sexy, but it did feel like something else.

“I think this is how sharing is supposed to work,” he murmured against her lips.

She used the proximity to lick the last of the ice cream off his mouth. “Is it working?”

“You tell me.”

They leaned against the pier in silence, and watched the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean and the humans on the beach. The cable-knit sweater was as soft as Amenadiel’s wings had been. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his cheek on top of her head, and after a while, Maze felt herself hugging him back.

 

*

 

“…and then we went back to his place and we had vanilla sex. Different to before, but not in a bad way. It was … nice.” Maze thought about how _nice_ could be a not totally good thing. And how she couldn’t really see herself doing this particular thing again soon with Amenadiel. Although she _had_ come five times, which made it a much more successful date than her last one. 

Another thought struck her. “You know, you were right about the whole attachment thing. I should have asked you first, rather than Lucifer. I mean, giving dating advice is totally part of your day job!”

Even though she’d just been told she’d been right all along, Linda didn’t look as happy as Maze would have expected. “So, you two are dating again?”

“Amenadiel and me? Please, he’s more messed up right now than I am — or than Lucifer is, and when you think about it, that’s really messed up. And he’s still an angel, and I don’t want to have to deal with that baggage. Besides, I still want to know how to make things work with actual humans.” 

Linda made the face she always made when Maze talked about angels and demons. It had started off annoying, but Maze realized she’d come around to finding it annoyingly _cute_. 

Seized with sudden inspiration, she added, “And I also figure that, since I’m on a roll with the dating thing, I should ask you to let me take you out, too!”

Linda’s eyes got impossibly larger. Maze couldn’t tell if it was nervousness or excitement or both. “Me? Why me?”

“You’re a real human? It could be like therapy, except even more horizontal?” 

Linda put up a little hand. “Whoa, I’m not doing the disbarred-for-sleeping-with-a-patient thing again! Even if the patient is you, Maze.”

“I’m actually not your patient,” Maze pointed out. “At least, I don’t think you ever opened a file on me.” 

Linda continued to look skeptical, and Maze belatedly realized she wasn’t selling it very well — which was a new one, because under normal circumstances this unbeatable package basically sold itself. How did humans do it? By building a connection, same like with the other thing. Plus, this was _Linda_ , the one human that actually knew and liked her; she couldn’t very well grab her and stick her tongue down her throat and then leave, like she usually did.

Did begging work for humans? Mazikeen the Two-Faced would rather have ripped her own guts out than pleaded for anything, but Maze the bartender slash bounty hunter had become an entirely different person.

“Also… I like being around you. You’re always honest, which is more than I can say for most humans. You’re also smart — I think you might be the smartest person I know, and I have known many smart people.” Maze paused to consider the intelligence quotient of lovers past. It was weird, because she’d always thought smartness was over-rated, but it seemed the exception to that was when it was _Linda’s_ smartness. “Also, we like some of the same things? Like, uh, tequila? And TV? And now I kind of like walks on the beach, as long as that is still a thing?” 

Linda still looked sceptical, and Maze found herself indeed resorting to the unthinkable. “There’s no other human I’d want to hang out with more than you. Please come on a date with me.”

Linda’s eyes got soft behind her glasses, and she patted Maze’s hand. “I’m not really into walks on the beach,” she said. “After a long day at work, I just want to put my feet up at home, you know?”

“Great!” Maze said. “It’s settled, then. We’ll stay in!”

 

*

 

Linda said, “You know, when you told me we’d get beers and watch a cheesy rom-com, I didn’t really expect you to have downloaded the entire second season of _The Exorcist_.”

“Isn’t this romantic?” Maze frowned at her new flat screen TV, across which a hot priest and an older-but-also-hot priest were rushing around trying to save small-town America from one demon at a time. “I mean, their technique is really old school, but just look at how these hot guys’ve bonded over their common interests!”

Linda sipped from the mug of beer, which she had to clasp in both hands. “They are pretty hot, I’ll give you that,” she said, after a while. “And they do seem to be into each other, though they could just be really into God instead.”

“Nobody’s that into the Big Man,” Maze said, speaking from personal experience. 

Linda chuckled, and they settled more comfortably into the sofa to watch the show. Maze couldn’t help but notice the warmth of Linda’s body through the silk blouse, and how nice it felt against her shoulder. 

Finally, after the usual fare of rotating heads and bile-spewing girls, the saintly duo took a break from their biblical duties to walk on a Pacific Northwest island shoreline under the setting sun, and to discuss their faith in hushed tones.

“I may not believe in God any more, but I believe in _you_ ,” the older guy said, and the younger priest made such huge heart-eyes that Maze thought they might fall out of his handsome, collar-wearing head.

“Mmm,” Linda sighed. Maze looked across at her suspiciously. It could have been the CGI reflected in Linda’s glasses, but she could have sworn the good doctor was looking rather starry-eyed as well.

Onscreen, their heroes were gazing at each other meaningfully, but were otherwise holding back from kissing each other’s faces off, all in the name of pining and ratings and good old unresolved sexual tension. Fortunately, Maze didn’t labor under the same narrative constraints. She took the beer mug from Linda’s hands, and then she leaned in.

Linda’s mouth was warm and tasted faintly of take-out; it was the softest mouth Maze had ever kissed, and Maze had kissed a lot of people. Linda’s pliant body curled against hers, a lithe, warm weight. Maze had intended on taking the kiss slowly, because that seemed to be what humans preferred on daytime TV, but Linda’s lips parted and Maze found herself deepening the kiss. What the hell, the doctor really knew how to kiss: her pliant tongue swept over Maze’s, and she sucked on Maze’s lower lip in a way that went straight to her sex, and Maze forgot about the priests and trying to seduce humans and gave herself entirely to the sensation of wetness and softness and heat.

They were breathing hard when they slid apart. Maze technically didn’t need to breathe, and could run for days without getting winded, but in Linda’s arms she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

“Holy shit,” she said. “What was that?”

“Oh dear,” Linda said. Her glasses were askew, her hair stood up on one side, and it was the cutest thing Maze had ever seen. Maze realized she had let Linda’s mug fall during the kissing, and that beer had pooled on her new carpet; she hoped none of it had gotten onto Linda’s nice shoes.

“Oh dear, what?” Maze tried to go back in for seconds, was surprised when Linda put her hand on Maze’s chest to stop her, rather than to pull her closer. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” Linda said; her mouth, puffy with kisses, was pressed into an unhappy line.

Maze felt something plummet inside her. “Is this about the patient thing again?” she asked. “Because I will totally see another doctor if you want me to. I mean, I don’t need a doctor, but I’d go to one if you thought I needed to.”

“It’s not the patient thing, Maze,” Linda said. She ran her free hand through her hair, trying to straighten it, and just making it even more of a mess. “You’re still exploring what it means to live among humans, and to have sex with humans, and you trust me to help you with those things, and I don’t want to take advantage of that trust.”

“But…” Maze sat back, away from Linda’s hand, and frowned. “It wouldn’t be taking advantage. You’d be helping me! Besides, it’s not as if you’re not feeling it. I can always tell when someone likes it, and just now you _really_ liked it.” 

Linda swallowed. Her fingers opened and closed, as if she wanted to reach for Maze again. “I did,” she managed. “I think that’s part of the problem. I liked it a bit too much. I like _you_ a bit too much.”

Maze thought about this. “But I can’t see why that’s a problem,” she said. “I mean, you like me, and I like you and want to have sex with you. If this was _Days of Our Lives_ , we’d be ripping each other’s clothes off right now.”

Linda sighed. “That’s true, and humans absolutely have that kind of sex. But I don’t, Maze. Or rather, I don’t want to have that kind of sex with you.”

When Maze realized what Linda was trying to say, it knocked the actual wind out of her. She had to lean back against the sofa in disbelief. “Holy shit, you _really_ like me.”

“Yes. I’m not the jealous sort, except apparently when it comes to you,” Linda said miserably. “So, you see why this isn’t a good idea? For me, as well as for you.”

This was much too complicated for any mere demon to deal with. Maze was absolutely, horrendously, no good at talking about anyone’s feelings; a week ago she would have set herself on fire and fled naked from the room to escape this conversation. 

But this was Linda, her first actual friend, her _best_ friend, even, who knew her better than even Lucifer did, who had just kissed her face off surprisingly and so awesomely, and Maze knew she had to try.

“Look, it’s true, I _am_ trying to figure out the human world and human sex. And I now get that you actually _like_ like me, and don’t want us to have meaningless sex. And, you know, now that I think about it, I don’t want us to have meaningless sex, either.” 

Linda didn’t look convinced, and Maze continued, “What I’m saying is: I think I like you, too.”

“Maze, you don’t have to say that. It’s perfectly all right to want to have sex with me and to not have feelings for me.”

Maze wasn’t going to put up with this textbook doctorly analysis. “How long have you known me? I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not going to start now.” Linda looked apologetic, and Maze pressed her point home. “Besides, don’t people develop feelings for each other over time? So I think I’ve started to have feelings for you, and I’m not just saying that to get you into bed.”

“Fair enough,” Linda said. She was trying not to smile, but the corners of her mouth were twitching. “I’m glad. I’m going to ask you to wait, though, until we’re really sure that this is what you want.”

This was the first time anyone had turned Maze down, and rather than it making her want to break things, it made her strangely hopeful. Maze said, tentatively, “Could we maybe hang out some more while we got sure of that?”

“I hope so. I would like that,” Linda said, smiling. She straightened her glasses in a gesture that made Maze’s mouth go dry. 

“Is it okay if we also made out while we were hanging out?”

Linda looked as if she was unsure if that was a good idea. Maze took her hands with as much gentleness as she was capable of. “We’ll just make out, that’s all,” she promised. “I won’t let you take advantage of me until I’m ready.”

“Oh, for … Fine, let’s do that. Sex is off the table, but I guess the lead-up should be all right for now.”

Sexless dating? A day ago the very idea would have made Maze want to throw up in disgust. But tonight, looking into Linda’s bright eyes, it filled her with anticipation. She felt herself shiver at the memory of Linda’s kisses; she knew how wet she’d gotten, even without sex on the table, let alone knives or leather or anything kinkier than UST-filled pining under a setting sun. 

“Anything you say,” Maze said, demurely, and reached over to take Linda’s glasses from her sweet, lovely face.

 

*

 

“Zero-orgasm dating? Will wonders never cease.” When she’d first broken the news, Lucifer had tried to get her to agree to a full medical check-up, because he couldn’t believe Maze would have agreed to this without actually losing her mind. A week on, and it was still the first thing he said to her.

Maze grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. These days you’ve had to get real familiar with the concept yourself, isn’t that right?”

“That is entirely different,” Lucifer sniffed. “The Detective and I have just come to an arrangement that works for us, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, this is also an arrangement that works for Linda and me. And it’s really working!” 

Now that she wasn’t having sex with Linda, or having sex at all, Maze felt like having sex all the time. More accurately, she felt like having sex _with Linda_ all the time. And amazingly, she felt really good about that.

Lucifer shrugged his shoulders as if he’d become uncertain of the fit of his perfectly-tailored Prada jacket. Then he took a step back and surveyed her outfit.

“Are you trying to give my therapist a heart attack?”

Maze looked down at her leather harness. “This is how I always dress for Linda,” she said, shrugging. Then again, she was kind of hoping tonight would be the night that Linda surrendered to the power of Maze’s cleavage. She’d noticed how Linda’s eyes kept returning to Maze’s boobs when Linda thought Maze was concentrating on the Exorcist season finale and its priestly duo saying a farewell that was full of love and longing.

Thus far, Linda had been courting her gallantly, with old school flowers and candy, and keeping her hands to herself. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true; they’d been making out like teenagers, and Linda’s hands had maybe wandered a bit in all that reckless passion. It wasn’t Maze’s fault that the doctor kissed like she might as well have a M.D. in kissing; Maze was looking forward to persuading Linda that they were ready for Linda to kiss other parts of her body.

“Huh,” said Lucifer, as he watched Maze flush in anticipation. “Perhaps tonight’s the night someone’s going to get lucky.”

Maze grinned; she knew how lucky she was to be with Linda, and maybe that was the secret to human sex. To any kind of sex, at that. “You know what? I already am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Set post- _Mr. & Mrs. Mazikeen Smith_, and pre- the rest of Season 3, including _The Sinnerman_ hookup. I know this doesn’t really line up with the second season of _The Exorcist_ , but I saw you were a fan and hope you’ll overlook the timing in the name of artistic licence! Happy Valentine's Day!
> 
> Thanks to Prinzenhasserin for the beta! Title references an inversion of the concept of no-strings-attached sex, the Zipless Fuck, promulgated in this [famous second wave feminist novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Flying_\(novel\)).


End file.
